Uno Chicago Grill Raises The Kid-Friendly Bar With New Program

Uno Chicago Grill, located on University Boulevard in East Orlando, is a certified kid-friendly restaurant and has rolled out a new activities program for kids. MyKidsPlate.com lists restaurants whose environment and staff make kids feel welcome and incorporate them in the dining experience. Certain restaurants can become certified after completing a process that includes a secret diner evaluation of 30 different attributes. "Activities for my kids" ranks at the top right now with parents.

"Nationally the Uno Chicago Grill chain offers a kids Make Your Own Pizza program. After a MyKidsPlate evaluation, we challenged them to raise that program to another level," said Julie Casey, owner of MyKidsPlate.com. "Since 'activities for my kids' ranks tops with parents and many consumers don't know about the Make Your Own Pizza program, we created the Pizza Chef Experience."

Kids can still make their own pizza 7 days a week however every Thursday this East Orlando location will offer a pizza toppings bar with at least 12 fresh toppings and a group of specialty toppings like All-American Cheeseburger or Hawaiian Luau. Each kid receives a "Chef in Training" id card which tracks 6 pizza creations. After creating 6 pizzas, one of which has to have at least one vegetable, they earn a free sundae, a free pizza for their next visit, and a special collector's pin. They also fill out a recipe card to name their pizza creations and list their ingredients for each creation. "

We recognize that kids today are not only experimenting with food but enjoy making it too," said Ginny Matteson, General Manager of the University Boulevard location.

"Keeping that in mind, we thought it would be fun to take something we already did, that we know kids enjoy, and step it up while also offering some healthy topping options for their pizza." The restaurant's kid-friendly certification doesn't stop there. They also rate high for having servers that don't put full glasses and hot plates in front of young ones, drinks with lids, a good noise level, short wait times, clean restaurant, clean restrooms, and diaper changing tables in both restroom - all attributes deemed important by parents.

MyKidsPlate.com has been rating restaurants since September, 2007. The attributes that define a restaurant kid-friendly are obtained from research by adults that take kids out to eat. To contribute to the definition of kid-friendly, go to MyKidsPlate.com.